Our view: Medicare fix is gaining support

Each year for the past decade Congress has played a game of chicken with physicians and the reimbursement formula under Medicare.

Each year doctors have faced the potential of double digit cuts to their reimbursement rate only to have Congress -- and typically at the 11th Hour -- enact stopgap measures to delay those cuts.

Those delaying tactics could be for a year, but in some cases, for only a month. For example, in 2010, Congress had to delay the reimbursements cuts a total of five times. Physicians were facing a 24 percent cut in reimbursements effective Nov. 1 before the most recent delay was approved. The current “fix” will expire on Dec. 31.

Having to continually face that level of uncertainty has made it more difficult for doctors to run their medical practices and for patients who were faced with the prospect of their physicians scaling back services for Medicare recipients.

The frustrating part for everyone involved has been the unanimous acknowledgment by all that a permanent fix was needed, and yet nothing has ever been done about it -- that is, until now.

Earlier this year, the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously approved a bipartisan proposal to finally overhaul and repair the funding formula for Medicare reimbursements.

If approved, and it appears there is sufficient bipartisan support that it will be, the proposal will repeal the “sustainable growth rate formula” enacted in 1997 as a means of reducing Medicare costs, but in reality has only created this annual showdown over reimbursements.

It is a rare but welcome departure in what has become a routine process for Congress to kick-the-can-down-the-road again. The willingness by members of both political parties to finally fix this problem raises the hope that as we approach yet another congressional showdown over budgets and deficits in the coming months that additional compromise and cooperation may be possible.